10 useful tips for Software Testers

1. When testing, never tamper with the testing environment that you have set up.
2. Set up goals for yourself. Start each testing day with the aim of reporting maximum Bugs. Make the day worthwhile and try to add maximum value
3. Apart from following the test cases, allocate some extra time for exploratory testing of the application. Chose a section of the application and make sure that by the end of the day you have not left any part of it untested.
4.  Devise practical life scenarios that can aid in testing the application from different angles.                                                               
5.  No bug in application is small enough not to be reported. Be it application crashing or a minor issue of text alignment, report them all.
6. Bug reporting should be more efficient. Try not to merge too many issues in one JIRA. This way there is a chance that few important points can get overlooked.
7. Make sure the steps to reproduce for an issue are detailed and easy to follow. Do not miss out any detail so that the issue is easily reproduced at the other end, and minimal questions are asked from you during the workaround.
8. Review the Bugs reported periodically as it would help in making the test case updates process more efficient for future version.
9. Write all important observations during testing on a word document. It would help to save a lot of time while reporting bugs or creating new scenarios for testing
10. Most importantly, stay focused. The time you spend testing, keep your attention on the task at hand only as I believe testing is all about “Focus” and “intent of finding errors”.

Important advice from Steve Jobs

Showing required information on web sites

As the numbers of internet users are increasing day by day over the globe and people are relying on web applications. The extensive use of web applications has resulted in complex and crowded applications.

Application designed considering the needs of the user, and helping the user to navigate the web without getting frustrated is the need of the hour. Designers are really focusing to give good user experience to the user, and information should be given in such a way that user gets control of the web site quite quickly instead website gets control over the user.

I have experience few websites which are bombarded with the information, but sometimes users are still struggling to get the required information. For example on the institutions/universities Websites, sometimes hard to find the answers of typical questions like

What is the actual fee structure?

When the next admissions will reopen?

Complete academic calendar

How to proceed with admin issues?

However, there are lots of universities which are quite good and giving information to the user in smooth way

I found following page quite useful :

http://uxdesign.smashingmagazine.com/2010/10/05/what-is-user-experience-design-overview-tools-and-resources/

Thanks

What is UX?

Quite helpful presentation

What is User Experience from Raj Lal

Ten ways to demotivate

Nice quote

Don't cry because it's over, smile because it happened.”

― Dr. Seuss

What is life?

Idea of life by Steve Jobs